Mobile Websites

Is your business losing money because your website is not optimized for the mobile web? Count on it!

You might think that just because you can load your website on a mobile device, that your site is optimized for the mobile web. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth. If you can’t view and read your website text when it first opens without touching the screen to zoom in and scroll in all different directions, then your site is not a mobile website.

Imagine sitting at home or your office in front of your desktop PC or laptop and you have to reach over and touch your computer monitor to zoom in and scroll everywhere just to view your website… That would be ridiculously inconvenient, don’t you think? Then why should your customers have to be subjected to that kind of frustration on their mobile devices?

Your website in its current state, was not designed for the smaller screens of mobile devices. Fonts are going to be too small and impossible to read, images are too large and bog down loading times, website coding is formatted in such a way, that it doesn’t automatically adapt to the small screens a Blackberry, Droid, iPhone, iPad, and dozens of other tablets and mobile devices. And if your site has ANY Flash animation elements, it is rendered completely useless to any of the millions of iPhone and iPad users. Steve Jobs has stated on Apple’s website in an article entitled “Thoughts on Flash“, “Most Flash websites will need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices.” Although, I’m not sure why he would use the word “most” because the fact of the matter is, that all sites with Flash elements will need to be rewritten in order to be viewed on a mobile device. There’s just no way around it.

Why You Need a Mobile Website:

60 million US subscribers access the mobile web each day

Mobile phones currently outnumber home computers 4 to 1

More than 50% of consumers are unlikely to return to your site if they have a poor mobile experience.

People who access the mobile web are projected to surpass home based Internet use by 2014

Google has reported a 400% increase in mobile searches over the course of 1 year. One of every three of those searches is for local businesses.

Websites built using Flash animation are rendered completely useless to anyone with an iPhone or iPad as Apple refuses to allow their devices to read Flash elements. This will not change in the future.

iPad sales went from 300,000 to nearly 15 million in less than one year.

iPhone sales went from 3.7 million to over 100 million units in just three years.

The amount of mobile web traffic is expected to increase 40X over the next 5 years.

Approximately 40-50% of local business Internet traffic is coming from mobile devices and is growing rapidly.

If you think the mobile web is the thing of the future, think again. The mobile web is NOW… and you’re business needs to catch up! If you haven’t noticed, many of the largest corporations have jumped into making their website content available on a mobile website. Aside from Facebook, Amazon, and eBay, just to name a few, look at the example of Dominos Pizza below. As you can see on the “standard” website, it would be impossible to read that text without touching the screen and zooming in. Doing so, eliminates your ability to see the rest of the page and is difficult to manage. Look at the navigation links at the top of the page. Again, without zooming in and scrolling from side to side, you’re not likely going to be able to find or hit the navigation link that you want.

Now look at the “Mobile Website” on the left. There’s one, easily identifiable header image and 5 easy to read, large, navigation links to tap on without having to zoom or scroll! Each of those links goes to another page that’s easy to read with only vertical scrolling to read up and down the page. Mobile websites are not just for big companies. It just so happens that they have a staff of people to keep their sites and technology as up to the minute as possible. Your customers would much rather view a site like this and are much more likely to do business with a site that they can easily read and navigate. Where’s your tech staff to keep your technology up to the minute?

Look how easy it is to view and navigate a mobile website. Your customers will notice!

Creative Outsource Group can inexpensively build a mobile optimized website that compliments your primary website. We’ll also code your standard website to automatically recognize what sort of device is trying to access it. If your Internet visitor is visiting your site from their home desktop or laptop computer, they will be served your standard website. If they are visiting from a mobile device such as a Blackberry, iPhone, iPad, Droid, etc…, they will be automatically redirected to your mobile website. The experience for your customer is seamless and there is absolutely no visual impact on your standard website.

Again, the mobile web and your need for a mobile website is not coming… it’s here! Take a look at a few examples of mobile optimized websites that we’ve completed.

Big Kitchen Cafe

The Big Kitchen Cafe is a famous San Diego breakfast and lunch restaurant owned and operated by Judy "The Beauty (on Duty)" and has been featured in Bon Appetit Magazine, Food Network, and is recognized as one of San Diego's best breakfast restaurants.

As you look at the standard desktop version of the Big Kitchen Cafe website, please note that other than the links on the bottom of the page and the "skip intro" link at top, the page is composed completely of Flash animation. As fun as it is to watch and functional for those on a desktop of laptop computer, Flash cannot be rendered on an iPhone or iPad leaving those users unable to view their site.

When we build a mobile ready website, it's truly "ready" to be viewed on all mobile devices including iPhones and iPads. If you're sitting at your desktop PC or laptop and you have your smart phone handy, first log on to http://www.bigkitchencafe.com on your desktop computer. Then, look at the same web address on your smart phone. Notice that you've typed in the same website address, yet you're looking at two different versions of the website. This is a result of our device recognition program that recognizes what device your visiting from and serves the appropriate site to the end user.

Paesano's of North Park

Paesano's Italian Restaurant of North Park, San Diego has been voted "Best Restaurant in North Park" amongst several other awards and has been serving fantastic Italian food since 1967.

If you look at their desktop standard site, Paesano of North Park, it looks great on your PC or laptop. But before we built and programmed the new mobile ready website, you can see how mobile devices just crunched the desktop site to fit on the screen making it difficult to read and navigate. The new mobile ready website fits all mobile devices, you can read the content without zooming, and the navigation buttons are large enough to tap with your finger on the first touch!

Another great feature of a mobile ready website is to have your business phone number right on the first screen and large enough to easily touch. Simply touching the phone number on your smart phone activates your phone making it ready to call your business for more information, reservations, or take out ordering!

Papanani's Deli

Papanani's Deli is a great little deli and min market on Harbor Island in San Diego. Their sandwiches are perfectly made and big enough to get you through the rest of your day without being hungry at all. Sitting between a nice and quiet marina and San Diego Bay, your choice of sitting on the patio, or taking your sandwiches for a picnic makes them that much better.

Papanani's standard website is easy to read and a basic navigation system to get you from their home page to their menu, contact page, etc. However, before we built their mobile ready website, you can see how mobile browsers had to squish their content in order to fit the screen making it difficult to read and navigate. After building their mobile ready website, it is now perfectly simple. You now have access to all of the important information you need from a deli.... where they're located, what's on their breakfast and lunch menu, and their contact information.... all just a tap away, no zooming or sideways scrolling. Note their easy to read phone number right on the front screen making it ready to just tap and call!

Contact us today for a free consultation of how we can help you get your mobile ready website.